Ed Sheeran Imagines

#2: You Can't Sleep

Ed was home.

That statement circulated in your mind the moment he ambled in the door, taking you in his arms and kissing you. So much was familiar, but yet so much had changed, and you weren't sure how you were going to explain go Ed about all those changes.

To be honest, you hadn't been sleeping like you should. At all.

You would go days on end with zero sleep, running on energy drinks and coffee and caffeine, and it was pretty much destroying you. You weren't healthy, the insomnia had wrapped its way around your mind, the stress of worrying about Ed on tour (a habit, really) making it hard to sleep without him there.

That's why, the first night he came back, you had told him you were going to watch television and then meet him back in bed, because you didn't want to explain the problem to him, knowing he would immediately blame himself and do something irrational like canceling a tour.

He had looked confused, and maybe a bit like a lost puppy, and then he'd kissed you goodnight and headed to the bedroom, leaving your side of the bed open for when you would be coming, your pillow balled up in his arms, face snuffled into your scent.

You had just gone to the living room and say down on the sofa, staring blankly at some program on tv you couldn't even care about if you tried, but you would watch it till your eyes burned and you physically could not take being awake anymore. That was until Ed came stumbling to look for you, worried and cold.

There was a quiet rustling and then a banging sound and then a 'fuck!' and you knew he was up, wandering to the living room to you.

"You ok?" You asked, stifling a laugh as he cursed again and again, hopping over with his stubbed toe, sheets wrapped around him like a cape. "You're asking me if I'm ok, and you're the one watching soap operas at 2 fucking A.M."

You smiled sadly, reaching your hand out for him, and he obliged, plopping his plaid pajama bottoms and burgundy shirt-clad self next to you on the couch.

His face softened with his voice in concern as he furrowed his brow, scrubbing the side of his hand up over the bridge of his nose, where his glasses perched.

"Hey, seriously, what's up? Cos I thought you'd want to be in with me since it's been so long since we've slept together?" His voice raised with the question, scratching his nose again and then securing his arm around you as you tilted your head to the slope of his broad shoulder, his thumb stroking your arm.

"Can't sleep," you mumbled, turning your heat-flushed forehead to his neck, nose scrunching at the scruff tickling you. He smelled like home.

"Do you feel alright?" He was checking you over, pulling back enough to press the back of a gentle, sharpie marked hand to your temple, mouth tilted down at the corner. "You don't feel too warm I ju-"

"I have a sleeping thing going on and I meant to tell you but you were on tour but I didn't want to worry you." You explained and he hummed, understanding your words, "I can barely sleep by myself, and I'm just so stressed out that my mind won't shut up long enough to let me rest. I'm so nervous in the city alone and I'm sorry."

To you it sounded even dumber out loud, but it kicked Ed in the gut.

His heart hammered against his rib cage with empathy for you.

"Hey, don't apologize honey, do you wanna try coming to bed with me? Just to see if me being here helps?" He squeezed you closer to his side, his hip pressing into yours, looking down at you as you caught his gaze, tilting your face up to kiss him quickly, his blond eye lashes fluttering at the familiarity. "Yeah, I'd like to."

"K," he said simply, standing from the couch, helping you up with a tentative hand, and then winking and laughing as he let you climb to his back, the sheet between you as he wobbled from the haze of early morning, and walked back to the bedroom, your lips pressed to his neck, eyes closed.

Once you were back in his familiar room, smelling softly of clothes soap and his cologne, something that put a smile on your face as you caught sight of the radiator in the moonlight, his underwear and flannels drying over it, you realized how right it felt to have him back.

He turned to gently let you slide off his back and sit on the bed, instinctively curling to his pillow, as you had while he was on tour. But there he was, taking off his glasses and ruffling his hair ands climbing in bed, so you didn't need it for comfort for the time being.

He scooted closer towards you, "Which way?" he asked a bit awkwardly, and you smiled at the soft contour of his easy sloping cheekbones in the light seeping through the window. In response, you cuddled up towards his chest, forehead pressed against the beating of his heart.

"Sounds good to me," he said with a little mumbled huff of laughter at your sudden reply, voice baritone in his chest against your ear as his solid arms wrapped around your exhausted frame, pressing a kiss to your forehead and tucking his chin on top of your head, tracing circles on your skin with calloused but tender fingertips.

You shifted again, it having been so long since you slept, and he sensed the anxiety.

"I'm here and you're safe," he said softly, a tenderness in his voice you closed your eyes against, "Just try to relax, I'm home and we can waste tomorrow all to ourselves, just try to get some sleep baby."

He felt your muscles go less tense, and kept working at your shoulders with patterns on his fingertips to soothe you, and he listened as you matched your breathing to his and started to actually sleep, something you'd been too stressed and anxious about to do completely or at all since he left.

You teetered between sleep and awake, and he repeated his comforts, quiet promises of 'I'm here,' 'you're ok' and 'I got you.'

You nodded against the solidness of his chest as you finally drifted to sleep, your arm tightening around him, his knee pushed up between yours comfortably, his words glossing over the fear and wrapping you in warmth and safety, as his blue eyes shut in the gentle light of so-late-in-the-night-it's-actually-morning, home, where he loved most, with whom he loved most of all.